E. P. Thompson: William Morris: Romantic to Revolutionary, rev. ed. (1955/1977)

This biographical study is a window into 19th-century British society and the life of William Morris—the great craftsman, architect, designer, poet, and writer—who remains an influential figure to this day. This account chronicles how his concern with artistic and human values led him to cross what he called the “river of fire” and become a committed socialist—committed not only to the theory of socialism but also to the practice of it in the day-to-day struggle of working women and men in Victorian England. While both the British Labor Movement and the Marxists have venerated Morris, this legacy of his life proves that many of his ideas did not accord with the dominant reforming tendencies, providing a unique perspective on Morris scholarship.

First published by The Merlin Press, London, 1955
Publisher Pantheon Books, New York, 1977
ISBN 0394733207
829 pages

Review (Eli Zaretsky, Studies in Romanticism, 1977)
Review (Patrick Parrinder, Science Fiction Studies, 1980)
Thompson’s lecture on Morris to the Williams Morris Society (1959)

Publisher (new edition, 2011)

PDF (109 MB, no OCR)
See also Morris’ novel News from Nowhere (1890/93) in the Internet Archive.

Pamela H. Smith: The Body of the Artisan: Art and Experience in the Scientific Revolution (2004)

“Since the time of Aristotle, the making of knowledge and the making of objects have generally been considered separate enterprises. Yet during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, the two became linked through a “new” philosophy known as science. In The Body of the Artisan, Pamela H. Smith demonstrates how much early modern science owed to an unlikely source-artists and artisans.

From goldsmiths to locksmiths and from carpenters to painters, artists and artisans were much sought after by the new scientists for their intimate, hands-on knowledge of natural materials and the ability to manipulate them. Drawing on a fascinating array of new evidence from northern Europe including artisans’ objects and their writings, Smith shows how artisans saw all knowledge as rooted in matter and nature. With nearly two hundred images, The Body of the Artisan provides astonishingly vivid examples of this Renaissance synergy among art, craft, and science, and recovers a forgotten episode of the Scientific Revolution-an episode that forever altered the way we see the natural world.”

Publisher University of Chicago Press, 2004
ISBN 0226763994, 9780226763996
x+367 pages

Reviews: Ashley D. West (CAA Reviews, 2004), Marjorie Harth (Pomona, 2004), Eileen Reeves (Renaissance Quarterly, 2005), William Eamon (Isis, 2006), John Henry (British Journal for the History of Science, 2006), Jonathan Sheehan (American Historical Review, 2006), Klaas van Berkel (BMGN, 2006), Trevor Marchand (Senses and Society Journal, 2008).

Publisher

PDF (51 MB, updated on 2020-5-1)

Gyorgy Kepes (ed.): The Man-Made Object (1966)

Between 1965 and 1966, New York book publisher George Braziller published a six volume series under the title Vision + Value, edited by renowned artist, designer and M.I.T. professor, Gyorgy Kepes.

The aim of the series, “…to stimulate the circulation of ideas, to find channels of communication that interconnect various disciplines and offer us a sense of structure in our 20th century world…,” encouraged interdisciplinary cooperation and sought to bring together the day’s foremost artists, scientists and scholars.

This volume presents a general evaluation of the man-made object as an important environmental factor in the shaping of the mores, feelings, and values. The man-made object, from ornamental trifles to large scale buildings, is here considered not only for its formal and aesthetic aspects, but also for its psychological and sociological impact.

Contributions by Gillo Dorfles, Herbert Read, Joan M. Erikson, Kazuhiko Egawa, Michael J. Blee, Marshall McLuhan, Christopher Alexander, Leonardo Ricci, Marcel Breuer, Theodore M. Brown, Jean Hélion, Henry S. Stone, Jr., Frederick S. Wright, Dore Ashton, Françoise Choay.

Publisher George Braziller, New York, 1966
Vision + Value Series, 5
230 pages

PDF (51 MB, no OCR)

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